The present invention generally relates to infrared thermography and more specifically to the application of infrared thermography in determining equipment temperatures in oil well fires so that a fast and accurate determination of which well is flowing can be made. The present invention has particular application in the determination of temperatures of equipment engulfed in a fire on offshore oil well platforms but is not necessarily so limited.
In the past, when an oil well complex, such as an offshore oil well platform, becomes engulfed in a fire, the procedure for determining the source of fuel to the fire was primarily one of trial and error, resulting in the loss of several million gallons of crude oil, billions of cubic feet of natural gas and gas liquids during the days and even weeks that were required for the determination. An offshore oil well platform may be connected to upwards of 20 separate oil wells. If one or more of these oil wells catches on fire, there is equipment on the platform to automatically shut-off the fuel flow in all other wells. The problem then is to determine which well or wells are flowing so that the flow of fuel to the fire can be blocked. Once this determination has been made, the flow of fuel may be blocked, for example, by slant drilling into that well or wells and flooding with mud. However, neither this technique nor any other conventional technique for shutting off the flow in a well can be used until there is an accurate determination of which well or wells are involved.
In an effort to make a more accurate determination of which well is flowing in a fire engulfing an oil well complex, infrared photographs have been taken of the fire from several different positions around the fire. These photographs were then developed and carefully analyzed. This technique, however, has had only limited success. The problem is that the thermal image produced by a pure fuel is readily identifiable, but when other fuel components are burned in a mixture, the thermal image becomes distorted. The distortion introduced from the combustion of a non-homogeneous fuel prevents accurate interpretation of the thermal imagery.
The application of infrared thermography for determining temperatures of equipment engulfed in a fire on offshore oil well platforms is unique and novel. Prior to the present invention, no such application of infrared thermography has been effectuated. As in the use of infrared photographs, the principle problem associated with the use of infrared thermography is this application is that the thermal imagery is distorted thereby preventing an accurate interpretation of the imagery.